TWO HANDS(59A. Things a clock has … or, literally, what 17-, 25-, 35- and 50-Across are), along withOFF STAGE (17A. Where Claudius is during Hamlet‘s “To be, or not to be“ soliloquy),BEFORE LONG (25A. Any time now),SECOND HELPING (35A. Extra plateful) and RIGHT FIELD (50A. Position for Babe Ruth) — that’s right, offhand, stagehand, beforehand, longhand, secondhand, helping hand, right-hand and field hand — are the interrelated entries of this deft Monday crossword, not a bit unlike the August 19th crossword of HEAD FIRST.

ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, edited by Will Shortz

This Sunday’s acrostic draws a quotation from The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World, a book by Steven BerlinJohnson in which he describes the most intense outbreak of cholera in Victorian London, the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak, and what it means to us today, from the way we understand cities, science, disease, and the modern world. The Ghost Map takes place in the summer of 1854. A devastating cholera outbreak seizes London. Dr. John Snow—whose ideas about contagion had been dismissed by the scientific community—is spurred to intense action when the people in his neighborhood begin dying. He creates the map that traces the pattern of outbreak back to its source, establishing a precedent for the way modern city-dwellers, city planners, physicians, and public officials think about the spread of disease and the development of the modern urban environment.

The quotation: AN ITINERANT UNDERCLASS MANAGED TO CONJURE UP AN ENTIRE SYSTEM FOR PROCESSING THE WASTE GENERATED BY TWO MILLION PEOPLE THE SCAVENGERS OF VICTORIAN LONDON WEREN’T JUST GETTING RID OF THAT REFUSE THEY WERE RECYCLING IT

The author’s name and the title of the work: STEVEN JOHNSON THE GHOST MAP

The full quotation — We’re naturally inclined to consider these scavengers tragic figures, and to fulminate against a system that allowed so many thousands to eke out a living by foraging through human waste. In many ways, this is the correct response. (It was, to be sure, the response of the great crusaders of the age, among them Dickens and Mayhew.) But such social outrage should be accompanied by a measure of wonder and respect: without any central planner coordinating their actions, without any education at all, this itinerant underclassmanaged to conjure up an entiresystem for processing and sorting the waste generated by two million people. The great contribution usually ascribed to Mayhew’s London Labour is simply his willingness to see and record the details of these impoverished lives. But just as valuable was the insight that came out of that bookkeeping, once he had run the numbers: far from being unproductive vagabonds, Mayhew discovered, these people were actually performing an essential function for their community. “The removal of the refuse of a large town,” he wrote. “is, perhaps one of the most important of social operations.” And the scavengers of Victorian London weren’t just getting rid of that refuse — they were recycling it.— more from Google Books, HERE.

Félix-Hilaire Buhot, The Spirits of Dead Cities, 1885, National Gallery of Art

The title of this sluggish Sunday crossword means absolutely nothing during the solution, being a mere afterthought. Clues with an asterisk (*) generate an across group of two-word entries running consecutively through the alphabet from top to bottom of the puzzle. Yes, that’s it. So… Army Brat, Carbon Dating, Exhaust Fans, Gray Hairs, Inside Job, Kitty Litter, Mixed Nuts, Outer Planet, Quick Read, Speed Trap, Used Vehicle, Winter X games and Year Zero.

argues for simplicity over complexity, credited to William of Occam, the 14th century philosopher.

Crop circles: It's more reasonable to conclude that humans, rather than aliens, made crop circles, largely because the alien theory is too complicated and makes too many unproved assumptions.

If You Hear Hoofbeats, Think Horses, Not Zebras: A phrase used by doctors to explain how to diagnose multiple symptoms... go with the obvious. If a patient has five symptoms, it's one malady, not five.

Solar System: Copernicus used Occam's thinking to explain that the Sun -- not the Earth -- was the center of the solar system, which made heavenly observations more easy to explain and eliminated many convoluted 17th century theories.

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL THE FAT LADY SINGS (14 and 17 Across, encouragement for a trailing team) and LET’S MAKE IT A TRUE DAILY DOUBLE, ALEX(57 and 60 Across, risky “Jeopardy!” declaration) are the featured entries in this end-of-week Friday crossword.

The online edition of this Wednesday crossword is prefaced with the note “This crossword is unusual in a certain way. Can you identify how? (answer in Notepad)”. Seeing the letter B pop up all over the place, I didn’t bother, but in the interest of reportage did so after solving — the note read “In this crossword, every answer and every clue contains at least one letter B.” Aha!, it’s both answer and clue! B as in brilliant!

Puzzle by Caleb Madison and the Jewish Association of Services for the Aged Crossword Class, edited by Will Shortz

The suffix -ana has been affixed to Mr. Nice Guy, smoking ban, one-man band and Joan of Arc producing MR NICE GUYANA(20A. Title for a South American mensch?),SMOKING BANANA(34A. Result of heating certain fruit too long?),ONE-MAN BANDANA (42A. Informal headwear that can’t be shared?) and JOAN OF ARCANA(56A. Secretive singer Baez?) — the interrelated group of this pleasant Tuesday crossword.